Constituent Update

August 2, 2011

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today reopened the comment period for its 2007 proposed rule that stated that one of the criteria for food labeled as gluten-free is that they could not contain 20 ppm or more of gluten. In the proposed rule, the FDA is committed to performing a safety assessment of gluten exposure in people with celiac disease (CD). FDA has completed a health hazard assessment concerning gluten (PDF, 462KB), which includes the safety assessment, and a report about this work (PDF, 292KB) was also released today.

The FDA encourages members of the food industry, state and local governments, consumers, and other interested parties to offer comments and suggestions about gluten-free labeling in docket number FDA-2005-N-0404 at: www.regulations.gov.